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4 Ways to Capitalize on Business Growth Opportunities
Opportunities for business expansion might present a balancing act for small- and medium-sized business owners seeking to expand. Testing the waters in terms of market demand and your company’s capacity to fulfil fresh demand might be beneficial.
Finding the ideal balance between opportunity and danger can be achieved by consulting others who have gone before you. Your business associates, clients, and financial supporters can provide insightful advice that will help you identify solutions and go forward.
Your network’s assistance can finally enable you to seize chances for business expansion. Take into account these four suggestions from businesspeople who have experience in doing just that.
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1. Look to your customers
People, not goods and services, can be your company’s best value. Customers may have insightful opinions about your company that you won’t discover elsewhere.
Some of Jenny Poon’s greatest possibilities for business growth, according to the coworking space CO-HOOTS’s founder, have come from her clients.
“I talk to my customers or potential customers to identify the problems they’re facing and then think about the simplest ways to leverage the strengths and networks I have to create solutions,” she explains.
Customers’ problems are only opportunities in disguise for Poon. Your customers might pick them up before you do, though. Poon concentrates on people and strives to enhance their experience, which enhances her business.
“Identify what a customer values and is willing to pay for,” she advises. Test those ideas later by comparing them to your market and determining your level of competitiveness.
Starting with a “minimum viable product”—one with only enough functionality to draw an initial base of consumers—is another test to help your firm grow. These customers can then contribute input for further product development.
2. Keep a close eye on the market
Understanding the market might be important while getting ready to scale. Market research may assist in determining the best consumer offerings, improving them with additional features and options, and spotting potential new business growth prospects.
This is how Brent Thomson, the company’s CEO and co-founder, created his digital billboard advertising business.
“As the market becomes more efficient, I look for opportunities that have the potential to benefit my company,” he claims.
Customers in the market that Blip services now place a greater value on efficiency as a result of the ongoing innovation, acceleration, and automation in digital advertising. Focusing on these market trends might keep Thomson one step ahead of the competition.
“The best opportunities are those where I can introduce new market-wide efficiencies,” he asserts. “My business will be pushing against the tide and less likely to succeed if my success depends on the market maintaining its current levels of efficiency.”
3. Be smart about financing
Financial planning guarantees that you can cover initial capital expenses while maintaining the cash flow required to scale. Savings done the old-fashioned manner, as Poon notes, can go a long way.
“I save like crazy and build an innovation fund so I can invest in problems I want to solve that will yield a return,” she claims.
Poon advises looking for collaborative projects if you lack the necessary funding on your own.
According to her, “a partner will occasionally give you the start-up capital you require or help build your product and maintain a financially viable business.” If that’s not feasible, I consider bank loans or investors.
Having a positive working connection with your financial institution can support stability during times of expansion. small business loansCredit cards for businesses can make managing investments and cash flow easier.
According to Thomson, creating a “good-enough” business might occasionally be essential to achieving financial comfort in the short term while preserving a clear vision for the future. He adopts this strategy in part because different financial backers have quite varied perspectives on corporate growth potential.
He says that although they value good business fundamentals, loan funding companies aren’t very interested with vision. “Like VCs and angel investors, high-risk equity investors invest on market size, product, and vision. Both funding sources remain available because of a strong vision and sound business operations.
4. Start small to scale big
When trying to expand your business, it can be normal to face problems, but you can start small to make sure you have enough working capital and the appropriate systems in place to scale.
What Poon does is this. She starts with workable concepts while drafting growth strategies.
She suggests starting with the ideas that are the easiest to test. “Identify the low-hanging fruit first, and get into the rhythm of testing those ideas,” she says. “Good job locking down your core model. After that, move on to better possibilities and grow.
When expanding your firm, it’s important to consider whether you have the personnel, systems, and financing capacity to meet the demands of a larger, more diversified organisation. A business could fail if it grows too quickly. Insufficient cash flow, decreased client satisfaction, and low morale are signs that a business is expanding too quickly.
Thomson suggests beginning modestly as well.
“Find business growth opportunities that don’t require enormous scale before you can make your first dollar,” he advises. This enables you to start making money early in the business cycle, which both confirms the viability of the idea and generates cash flow for investment.